The Unfinished Revolution? The Palace of Culture of the Railway Workers in Kharkiv

The future reconstruction of Ukrainian cities from wartime devastation will require an extensive discussion on strategies and concepts of preservation of cultural heritage – including the heritage of the Modern Movement. It should involve not only the technical aspects but political and historical issues as well. The history of the Palace of Culture of the Railway Workers in Kharkiv (architect Alexander I. Dmitirev, 1927-1932) provokes a number of questions on the essence of Ukrainian pre-war Modernism and Constructivism, the idea of the Sovietisation of the theater against the Great Theatre Reform movement or the role of Workers’ Clubs and Palaces as social condensers. Thus, its analysis cannot by limited to the form and content of the edifice itself, but should be perceived in the broader context of similar projects (for example the Kharkiv Opera House) and views on architecture in the 1920s and 1930s.The Palace of Culture in Kharkiv can be considered as an example of “architecture in transition” where evolving trends in art as well as a dynamic socio-political situation left their marks and created a multi-layered palimpsest. Dmitriev’s design included the Constructivist spirit as well as conservative monumentality. It seems to become a legacy of a revolution (in architecture, theater and society) which has never been really completed

Funkcja wynikająca z formy – adaptacja architektury powojennego modernizmu do nowych programów funkcjonalnych

The aim of this article is to analyze the possibilities of adaptation of modernist architecture objects erected in Poland after World War II. The specificity of the form, which was designed in the spirit of functionalism, and thus adapted to a specific functional program, makes it much more difficult to change the purpose of the objects. Similarly, material and structural solutions, which (sometimes due to their experimental, innovative character) poorly stand the test of time. Considerations on introducing new functional programs while maintaining the authenticity of objects have been illustrated with selected examples of implementation, which are to prove the thesis that the final effect of the adaptation process depends, among others, on the proper interpretation of the historical substance and the idea behind its origin.Celem niniejszego artykułu jest analiza możliwości adaptacji obiektów architektury modernistycznej wzniesionych w Polsce po II wojnie światowej. Specyfika formy, która została zaprojektowana w duchu funkcjonalizmu, a więc dostosowana do określonego programu funkcjonalnego, znacznie utrudnia zmianę przeznaczenia obiektów. Podobnie rozwiązania materiałowe i konstrukcyjne, które (niekiedy ze względu na eksperymentalny, nowatorski charakter) źle znoszą próbę czasu. Rozważania nad wprowadzaniem nowych programów funkcjonalnych przy jednoczesnym zachowaniu autentyzmu obiektów zostały zilustrowane wybranymi przykładami realizacji, mającymi udowodnić tezę, iż efekt finalny procesu adaptacji zależny jest m.in. od właściwej interpretacji substancji historycznej i idei będącej jej genezą

Recreational architecture at the service of politics – dissonant heritage of holiday resorts from the era of the People’s Republic of Poland

Modernistyczne ośrodki wypoczynkowe wznoszone w PRL stanowiły istotny element projektu modernizacyjnego. Realizowały program władz budowy „drugiej Polski” i wpisywały się w obowiązujące tendencje w architekturze światowej. Po latach socmodernistyczne domy wczasowe i sanatoria niejednokrotnie wpisują się w defi nicję „niepożądanego dziedzictwa”, a o problemach z ich interpretacją i adaptacją nierzadko decyduje tło polityczno-historyczne, tożsamość, ogólna recepcja nowoczesności. Skrajnymi przykładami tego złożonego zjawiska są Ustroń oraz Jastrzębia Góra. W pierwszym przypadku realizacja A. Franty i H. Buszki stała się czasowo elementem herbu miasta i jest do dziś częścią lokalnej tożsamości. W drugim – obiekt autorstwa Sz. Bauma rozebrano jako nieprzystający do współczesnych wymogów. Waloryzacja budynków oraz ich poszczególnych elementów według istniejących kryteriów określa wartość materii. Wzbogacona o informacje dotyczące miejsca, jakie dany obiekt zajmuje w pamięci indywidualnej i kolektywnej (wraz z całym bagażem związanych z nim zdarzeń), pozwala nakreślić właściwą strategię ochrony.Modernist holiday resorts built in the time of the People’s Republic of Poland constituted an important element of the modernization project. They implemented the program of the authorities in favor of the construction of “the second Poland” and formed a part of the contemporary tendencies of global architecture. Now that many years have passed, social modernist holiday resorts and sanatoriums often embody the defi nition of the “undesired heritage” while their interpretation and adaptation is often infl uenced by the political and historical background, identity, and general reception of modernity. Ustroń and Jastrzębia Gora are the extreme examples of this complex phenomenon. In the case of Ustronie, the project of A. Franta and H. Buszko in time has become an element of the city’s coat of arms and up to this day remains a part of the local identity. In the case of the latter, Sz. Baum’s object was demolished as it was deemed unfi t for the contemporary requirements. The evaluation of the buildings and their elements according to the existing criteria determines the value of the matter. Enriched by the information on the place a given object takes in people’s individual and collective memory (together with the recollection of the events related to it), it allows to come up with an appropriate strategy of protection

The impact of mergers and acquisitions announcement on the short-term stock market performance in the biotechnological and pharmaceutical industry. Empirical evidence from US companies during the period of 2005 to 2017.

Transactions of mergers and acquisitions have become a common way of the company’s development in the past decades, especially in the biopharma industry – only in 2019, there were 936 announced transactions. However, there are few studies that comprehensively examine these sectors and their impact on the shareholders’ wealth. Using a sample of 136 mergers and acquisitions announcements during the period 2005-2017 and employing the event study methodology, we examine a short-term impact on the US acquirers in the pharmaceutical and biotechnological industry. In order to better understand the M&A effect, we have distinguished five factors that may have an impact on the stock movements: cross-border/domestic transactions, method of consideration, industry, previous M&A experience and the deal size. Overall, our findings indicate that M&A announcements have a significant and positive impact on stock performance. However, when it comes to the other factors, we found that cross-border deals experienced a negative effect on the stock performance during the pre-announcement period and positive after and on the announcement day. Methods of payment based on cash only, generate mostly positive returns, while stock and mixed offers show harmful effects. Similarly, transactions announced by pharmaceutical enterprises induce favourable effects on the stock market performance, in comparison to biotechnological ones. Previous M&A experience resulted in positive and significant abnormal returns only in the post-announcement windows, while findings from the transaction size factor cannot designate the impact on the shareholders’ wealth

Plane-Wave Diffraction by a Wedge-A Spectral Domain Approach

Coordinated Science Laboratory was formerly known as Control Systems LaboratoryJoint Services Electronics Program / N000-1479C-042

Communication Platform for Evaluation of Transmitted Speech Quality, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2011, nr 3

A voice communication system designed and implemented is described. The purpose of the presented platform was to enable a series of experiments related to the quality assessment of algorithms used in the coding and transmitting of speech. The system is equipped with tools for recordingsignals at each stage of processing, making it possible to subject them to subjective assessments by listening tests or, objective evaluation employing PESQ or PSQM algorithms. The functionality for the simulation of distortions typical for voice communication over the Internet was implemented, making itpossible to obtain reproducible, quantifiable results. An application of the presented platform for evaluation of acoustic echo canceler algorithm based on watermarking techniques, which was developed earlier is presented as an example of an effective deployment of the described technology